“I have just explored the resources and they are AMAZING!!! I have done lots of Kodály training and am so excited about using the resources.”
— Grainne Naylor, Notre Dame School, Liverpool

9 out of 10 teachers say it’s had a hugely positive impact on pupil attainment and their own enjoyment of teaching

Suitable for specialists and non-specialists

Reinforces continuous genuine music-making as desired by OFSTED

Used by more than 1 in 3 primary schools and recommended by over 100 music services and hubs

Winner of Best Digital Resource

“The most significant new primary music resource for a decade!”

Musical School is used in over 8,500 primary schools

Scheme

A complete Scheme of Work for your school

The Charanga Musical School Scheme provides teachers with week-by-week lessons for each year group in the school from ages 5-11. It is ideal for specialist and non-specialist teachers and provides lesson plans, assessment, clear progression, and engaging and exciting whiteboard resources for every lesson. The Scheme supports all the requirements of the national curriculum and is absolutely in line with published Ofsted guidance.

Musical School Learning

The learning within this Scheme is based on: Listening and Appraising; Musical Activities — creating and exploring; and Singing and Performing. Everything is clearly and simply explained and the planning support is extensive.

Interactive Teaching Resources

Because the on-screen resources are so visual and supportive and everything is at your fingertips, every lesson is full of music and the children enjoy every moment.

What teachers say

Musical School has given my staff the confidence and the resources to deliver exciting music lessons. The sessions are quick and easy to organise and can successfully be taught by non- music specialists. The children clearly enjoy the dynamic, fun and stimulating sessions and our teachers are learning valuable new skills.

Julie Brown, Headteacher

I think Charanga is absolutely fantastic. I use the rhythm grids as a starter activity in all my classes and the pupils’ understanding of rhythm, the accuracy with which they perform has really improved. I use the recorder course with my clubs and they love all the songs. This half term I’m also teaching the hip hop topic with my y6s and it’s going really well. I look forward to some more exciting resources.

Yvette Cooper, Music Teacher

Good to know

The Scheme guarantees you’re teaching the national curriculum for music in full.

Anyone can teach with this Scheme because the on-screen resources give you so much support.

“High quality”, “fun to teach” and “the children love it” are the things teachers say most about this Charanga Scheme.

Key facts

The Scheme has lesson plans, assessment, and stunning resources for every lesson across the whole school.

A simple low-cost annual fee for your school includes unlimited access for every teacher.

Use online OR download with no limits and no extra payments.

For those occasions when you need the backing tracks for performances, there’s also a free Scheme Songs app with everything you’ll need.

Musical School Assessment

We’ve looked at all the great thinking that has been done on assessment and created an easy-to-use framework that’s useful for both music specialists and non-specialists. In essence, there are three aspects to the assessment:

End of Key Stage Expectations with the expected musical learning against which to assess

One-page lesson plans with the facility for you to formatively (continuously) assess

A digital evidence storage facility to help you build a musical E profile for classes and individual pupils

Updates to the Musical School Scheme

We constantly seek to improve what we do and respond to the feedback we get from teachers.

Among other things, you will see an updated Scheme with more progressive Listening & Appraising and Musical Activities devised to give extra variety and to challenge older children.

We have added new units including the classic songs ‘Dancing In The Street’ and ‘Happy’ to keep the teaching and learning fresh for both the teacher and the children. Changes have been made to the autumn half term units to give options and flexibility at the time of year when you need it most.

Freestyle

A vast library of music resources

While for many teachers the Scheme may be the part of Charanga Musical School they use the most, many teachers also like the more flexible Freestyle approach provided by the Musical School resource library. From this library, you can choose from a range of music resources which you might want to mix in with your own resources. You can also use the library to find resources linked to many other areas of music-making in your school.

What teachers say

We have been using Charanga for almost 2 years now and have found it a great resource for introducing our primary school children to a range of musical disciplines. Its lesson plans are comprehensive, easy to follow and most important of all ... fun. In addition, this is all supported by a great technical support team.

Phil Morgan, Primary Teacher

Take a look at what’s in the Musical School Freestyle library

Topics

Songs and other resources for over 30 popular school topics. From Ancient Egypt and Celts & Romans to Energy, School and Healthy Living.

Units

Stand-alone Units of Work for all ages, presented in a flexible way and covering a wide range of musical genres. Some of the units are full-blown musical productions for seasonal festivals including Christmas, Harvest and Diwali.

Listening Calendar – library of listening for every month of the year linking musical listening to specific dates

BBC Ten Pieces – An exciting new BBC-led initiative for primary schools focusing on Classical music and creativity

Charanga Sing

Charanga Sing is a brand new teaching resource aimed at encouraging everyone to sing more!

Extensive research has shown the undeniably positive impact singing has on emotional, physical and mental well-being. This is the reason why singing features so highly in music curricula and on educational agendas – as well as simply being a great thing to do!

Charanga Sing contains a growing bank of over 500 songs presented in a way that is intuitive to use whether by vocal specialists, confident singers or those just keen to encourage more singing every day.

There are songs for all occasions, all ages and for all groupings from soloists to massed choirs. The repertoire covers a wide range of styles, cultures and purposes, with each one carefully picked to be included in the song bank.

What teachers say

A fantastic, easy to use singing resource for all primary ages, covering a wide range of musical styles. There are great opportunities for extension activities for your most able groups of singers.

Analie Hart, Music Coordinator, Heron Primary School, Gloucestershire

100s of songs to enjoy with your pupils + singing courses for younger children

For younger children

A bank of nursery rhymes, action songs, including many old favourites and specially written songs which are perfect for little voices.

Vocal Coach

A vocal health section all about taking care of the voice with fantastic body and vocal warm-ups, exercises and popular tongue twisters.

For older children

A wide range of unison and 2 or more part songs. Some are specially composed or traditional, many are new and very well-known from popular shows, musicals and pop artists – all ideal for encouraging every one of your pupils to sing.

Key facts

There is no limit to the number of songs you can use online and no limits on downloads.

Access to everything you see here, along with the Scheme and Freestyle library, is included in the simple, low-cost annual fee for your school.

Good to know

The Charanga Sing’s interactive resources are really helpful for teachers that don’t feel confident with singing. They’re a great way to build up confidence.

SEND in Musical School

Supporting teachers working with children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities.

At present it consists of a Scheme of ready-made lessons called ‘Anyone Can Play’ AND a Freestyle library section that brings together the most popular Charanga resources from across Musical School as used by teachers in special needs settings around the country.

SEND in Musical School is undergoing much new development work at the moment with the help of some great partners, so watch this space.

What teachers say

Charanga music sessions teach much more than music to my class of Post 19 SEND students. They learn about turn taking, anticipation, working with others, respect and appreciation of others, making choices and building self-esteem. Our music sessions are the only lesson during the week where staff and students applaud themselves at the end!

Julie Sale, Class Teacher, Lexden Springs School, Essex

Key fact

Access to everything you see in the SEND section is open to all teachers, along with the Scheme, Freestyle and Sing areas, and is included in the simple low-cost annual fee for your school.

Music World for Children

Within Musical School, Music World for Children is a safe online space especially for the children to use. It has avatars, musical games, quizzes and beginner instrumental courses that you can provide for all the children in your school.

It’s easy to set up whole classes with usernames and passwords (in a similar way to My Maths and Mathletics).

Through Music World, you can share with the children things you’re working on in class, like songs or recorder pieces, so they can play with them at home.

Key facts

over 150,000 children have used Music World since we introduced it a couple of years ago.

Like everything else in Musical School, access for every child is included in the simple, low-cost annual fee for your school.

Does the Musical School work?

The positive evidence is overwhelming with two independent masters’ theses showing that schools using the Charanga Musical School programme have experienced a significant improvement in music teaching and musical achievement.

Our close links with schools through Charanga’s partnerships with over 100 music services and hubs and through the 500 plus Musical School training sessions we run each year, we get a great insight into how effectively the programme is working for teachers.

In addition, our Musical School teacher survey to which we had almost 1000 responses, showed the following highly encouraging feedback from both specialist and non-specialist music teachers.

A survey of teachers using the Musical School programme

CPD and Training for Musical School

Twilight training — for groups of schools

Twilight training events are held regularly at local schools and music centres across the area. All schools are invited to send their key staff along and in many cases those attending will be conﬁdent to feedback and support their own school colleagues.

These face-to-face training events are further supported with opportunities for self-directed online learning through a wide range of help and support guides, a named CPD contact person and a helpdesk for technical issues. Additionally, teachers are encouraged to share their successes, ideas and suggestions through the resource-based Teachers’ Sharing Space and community.

Price for 1½ hour twilight session FREE.

In-school training — just for your school

Discover the comprehensive Musical School Scheme of Work developed to meet the national curriculum and the teaching approach favoured by Ofsted. See how the Units of Work, Topics and Instrumental Courses can support themed learning and how to build your own lessons from the library of resources and share them with your colleagues and pupils.

Arrange Training

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Musical School widely used?

YES - more than 1 in 3 UK schools use Musical School with more adopting the programme every day. Teachers did well over one million hours of teaching with Musical School over the past year.

Is there any training available?

We run over 500 Musical School training sessions every year, in addition to those run by music hubs up and down the country. We can always provide you with high-quality training.

What about Ofsted?

While Musical School is totally in line with Ofsted guidance and it does a massive amount to support your teaching, Ofsted inspection is always about the teaching so we do like to highlight our little sign.

How does the free trial work?

Sign up and we will then send you a login which will be activated for 30 days. We do not take any payment details for the trial. At the end of the trial, you can place an order which will convert your trial licence to a full one and you keep the same login details so you can preserve any lessons you’ve created. However, if it’s not right for you, just let the trial expire and we thank you for your interest.

How much does it cost and is it an annual fee?

Musical School for primaries won’t cost more than £295 per annum - often less. It differs around the country based on how much it’s supported by your local music hub, authority or MAT and also the size of school. Teachers who use it though, consistently tell us the cost is low and it’s great value. It is an annual fee but upgrades are free. Find out the exact cost for your school.

What does Charanga mean?

It’s a small musical band often linked to Cuban music. We thought it was a good name for a music education company (and we’re all a bit partial to the Latin music vibe).